


Waiting Games

by alessandralee



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2013-11-08
Packaged: 2017-12-31 21:34:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alessandralee/pseuds/alessandralee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grant Ward is a man of action. Being useless when someone he cares about is in danger is not something he handles well. Internal development set in episode 1.06.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting Games

Grant Ward is a man of action. He can scale the side of a cliff without equipment. He can fight multiple assailants simultaneously. He can shoot the legs off a flea from 500 yards away (provided, of course, that it’s not windy). He can even sit in the same crouched position for hours on end, just waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

What he cannot do is watch someone he cares about suffer. Lucky for him, in most cases there’s a way for him to fix things. There’s usually a bad guy to knock out, a giant laser to shoot out of the sky, or an already prepared anti-serum he just has to cross a pool of lava to get to (often while being shot at himself). But this time there’s nothing.

This time all he can do it watch and wait. So he’s standing in front of a tv screen, doing his best to keep out of the way and let the people who can help do their jobs. He’s already spent 30 half-hearted minutes in the training room, trying to burn off his frustration. But it’s hard to focus on pummeling a simulated assassin when he knows it’s not going to affect the outcome of what’s happening in the lab a floor above him. So he’s given up on that. And when Skye joins him he figures that, even he’s still angry with her for keeping secrets, this situation is too awful to hold grudges. But all he’s really doing is telling her the same things he’s been telling himself since Fitz realized Jemma’s become infected. They can’t affect the outcome of this virus in any way. That all they can do it wait.

And it’s a different type of waiting than he’s used to. He doesn’t have the reassuring knowledge that, at some point, he’ll be needed. This is completely out of his hands. And that scares him.

But at least talking to Skye keeps him from playing out thoughts of what happens if Fitz and Simmons can’t produce an anti-serum. He knows the protocol for situations like this. As it stands, Jemma Simmons is a threat to the safety of five SHIELD agents and millions of dollars worth of equipment. That threat should be eliminated by whatever means necessary. He was waiting outside Coulson’s office when those orders came through, so he knows Coulson is resisting them, but he also knows that Jemma knows the rules. And Jemma Simmons cares far too much about her team to risk their lives. But can the team even exist without her?

Fitz leaves, that’s a given. Any time he’s taken out of his lab, he’s terrified. The only reason he’s even taken a field assignment is because he knows he does his best work with Jemma. So without her to keep him there, that’s two agents they’ve lost. And Skye might disappear as well. Simmons was the first to forgive her trust Skye after her motives for joining SHIELD were revealed. The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that Jemma never really stopped trusting Skye. He thinks that the hostile environment of himself, Coulson and May might be enough to make Skye try to find another way to learn about her parents. And how much good can they do if they’re just two fighters and Coulson?

But even if everyone stayed on, they’d still be missing something integral. No one else can talk down a panicked Fitz, much less do it in less than 60 seconds while simultaneous determining the exact origins of extraterrestrial plant matter. And her calming affect isn’t just limited to Fitz. She’s the only one who isn’t regularly set off by the high stakes of their job. She takes everything in stride and has enough humor to relax everyone else (even if her impression of him is incredibly inaccurate. His voice is not that nasally). In a matter of weeks, she’s become indispensible. Without Jemma they’d be at each other throats every time the going got tough. And considering their line of work, that would happen multiple times a day.

So when the bay doors open, he doesn’t even stop to think. This is something he can do. In fact, throwing himself out of a plane isn’t just easier than the last two hours of doing nothing; it’s actually a relief. Because risking his life is way less painful that watching Jemma risk hers.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been nearly a decade since the last time I wrote fic. I hope it doesn't show too much.


End file.
